TALLIS, Thomas – Motet ‘Spem in alium nunquam habui’ – 40 (Forty) CELLOS

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This Motet is one of the greatest motets ever written, of that I feel sure. I can readily remember, as a student, pondering over the main score in the Royal Academy of Music (London) library, and being awe-inspired at its construction.

The idea of making this possible with forty cellists is an idea that came to my head whilst investigating other pre-Baroque choral works. Some of these are also available in versions for larger cello ensembles from the johnstone-music web page, as always as FREE DOWNLOADS.

I would like to draw your attention to the following words, which appear in the introduction to the main vocal score in the published edition presented by Philip Legge, and I must give him great credit not only for the most interesting programme notes, but also for the very excellent score lay-out.
“Musically, the motet is a tour de force on many levels, not least for Tallis’ masterful exploitation of his choirs’spatial distribution. If the choirs are arranged in circular fashion sequentially by number, then the music “rotates” through the opening points of imitation on Spem in alium nunquam habui (choirs I to IV) and Præter in te, Deus Israel (choirs V to VIII). After a short interjection from choirs III and IV (which functions antiphonally as “decani” to the “cantoris” of choirs VII and VIII) Tallis completes the circle with the entry of the final bass voice of Choir VIII; shortly afterwards, at the fourtieth breve of the work, all forty voices enter in the first of a series of massive welters of sound, which has been described as “polyphonic detailism”. The next imitative section which follows at qui irasceris et propitius eris reverses the direction of rotation as new voices enter against varied countersubjects in the parts already established.
Tallis also manages to combine the exchanges between choirs in four different antiphonal arrangements, by amalgamating the singers in four groups of two choirs (as hinted at above), so antiphony can pass back between both “north” and “south”, but also between “east” and “west”), but also as two groups of four choirs (i.e. one massive 20–voice choir against another) which can be arranged in two different ways (north and west versus east and south, or north and east versus south and west)”